> I agree with your 2 April column in TLE.
>From which sites can I download your complete novels?

Cute try, Eric, but no cigar -- and points off for intellectual
dishonesty. The analogy is not a good one, and the fact that you
included the word "complete" demonstrates that you are perfectly well
aware of it.

To be a good analogy, you would have had to say something like
"individual chapters" (analogous to individual album tracks, you
see), and the answer then would have been http://www.baen.com --
simply proving my point that Napster served as free advertising for
record companies, since that's why Baen puts chapters of my books
online.

Better yet, you could have said "individual essays", since (unlike
book chapters) those are as freestanding as tracks on an album. The
answer then would have been "everywhere" -- put my name in your
browser and see for yourself.

Nice idea, but almost impossible to implement. Remember, under the
current laws, those exact same people would be responsible for
deciding if the gun store could remain open or renew its license. So
as soon as they refused to sell to police or government employees,
they would be targeted to be closed down. How? Re-zoning, local laws
prohibiting firearm sales within X distance from school, parks,
exc.., anonymous tips to the ATF (not necessarily true ones) - take
your pick. And the government could easily get public support for
shutting them down. Could you imagine the public reaction to a
headline that read: "Gun store refuses to sell to police." or "Gun
store tells police they are not welcome." It would be talked up
immediately that the only conceivable reason they had for refusing to
deal with police is that they dealt with so many criminals. In
addition, the store would probably face a discrimination lawsuit
which, even if they won, would bankrupt them.

All is not lost however, there is simple, safe and immediate thing
that gun stores could do:

Stop giving discounts to LEO's.

Almost every gun store gives discounts to active duty police (5% -
10% is common). By stopping that, they can send a message and make a
bigger profit in the bargain (revolution at a profit). And the public
reaction to a headline that reads: "Gun store refuses to give police
discounts." is hardly the same.

Last June David Boaz, vice president of the CATO Institute, was
driving through the cesspool of American Democracy when he was
stopped by a police officer for failure to comply with the cities
dictate that motorists must wear seat belts. The officer initially
was going to issue Mr. Boaz a warning but returned to his motorcycle
after Mr. Boaz questioned the direction of law enforcement what with
over 300 murders in the district. Mr. Boaz was then issued a ticket
for a "tax" $50.00, mostly to pay for paper shuffling bureaucrats,
and assessed 2-points so the state regulated insurance companies
could "tax" him more. When asked whether it was his comments that had
changed the warning into a ticket the officer replied that Mr. Boaz
should have kept his mouth shut. Mr. Boax detailed his encounter in
the April 15th edition of the Washington Post.

As unsettling as that was, the response to Mr. Boaz's article that
sent distinct chills down my spine. Several civic minded citizens
wrote in chastising Mr. Boaz for daring to question the officer of
the city with one writer offering this slice of homespun wisdom, "I
taught my children that you don't argue with umpires or cops because
not only can you not win, you're going to lose. Ever seen the strike
zone grow on batters who show up the ump?"

And now, five of the nine justices have ruled that it is legal to
arrest and handcuff a driver even for crimes punishable only by fines
brought about by a woman being arrested, handcuffed, and taken to the
police station for driving without a seatbelt. Justice David Souter
writing for the majority justices said "The arrest and booking were
inconvenient to Atwater, but not so extraordinary as to violate the
Fourth Amendment."

The Fourth Amendment states, the right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or
things to be seized. So one reading that must wonder where Justice
Souter can find that a level of inconvenience must be reached before
the seizure becomes unreasonable. The sad thing about this is most
Americans will applaud this continued erosion of their liberties
concerned only that "... that my insurance premium will go up if Mr.
Boaz eats his windshield."

Of course this is only one of the dancer in a long Conga-line of
assaults on the liberties and freedoms of individuals in the United
States. The Supreme Court has already let stand the rights of a
police officer to pull over a motorist even with little more than the
bad reputation of the driver to go on as evidenced by the decision
Maryland vs. Dyson.

This leaves me wondering if I have to carry a side arm to guarantee
that my rights and liberties are respected even if the government has
declared it illegal for me to do so?

The lesson given here is don't talk back, be a good citizen, and
there is a place for America for you.

FYI, Derbyshire's wife is from China, and is still in the
naturalization process.

"...I guarantee that when the first U.S. carrier is sunk by Chinese
action, or the first American city is erased by a Chinese ICBM,
Chinese nationals, including those who are U.S. Citizens, will be
hustled into camps faster than you can say 'executive order' and will
stay there for the duration, whatever the ACLU -- or even the Supreme
Court--thinks about it. I hope the camps will not be very
uncomfortable, for I shall be there too -- the Derbyshires travel as a
family. I also hope that I shall be able to maintain sufficient
detachment to understand that a responsible U.S. government really
has no choice in the matter."

Not missing a chance to "spank" Hollywood, Foreign Minister Colin the
Fickle, one of King George the Dim's advisors, decided to chastise
Robert Downey Jr. for his contribution to the problems in Columbia
and other Andean nations. Foreign Minister Colin forgetting of course
that the only reason "Drug Lords" and their ilk exist at all is
because of the prohibition the United States has placed on illicit
and illegal drugs and the only harm Robert Downey Jr. has caused is
to himself and viewers of Ally McBeal.

The only lessons that the United States seems to have learned from
Prohibition is that the government wasn't taking enough advantage of
the situation of prosper from declaring certain substances illegal.
Of course back in the 1920s the federal government was not nearly as
entangled around our necks as it is today.

Foreign Minister Colin stood before congress and told them that
wealthy American drug users are a main cause of the cocaine scourge
ravaging Colombia and other Latin American countries. Foreign
Minister Colin, testifying before a congressional panel, said the
main reason Andean nations faced difficulties in curtailing the
production of narcotics, particularly cocaine, was the huge demand
for drugs in the United States."The real problem in the region is not
caused by the region, it is caused by what happens on the streets of
New York, the streets of all our other major cities," Foreign
Minister Colin told a House of Representatives budget subcommittee.

Colin the Fickle was obviously asking for more money to combat the
drug scourge that the government created so the government can tax
you more, put more police on the streets to pull you out of your cars
and arrest you then search your car for those drugs that they've
declared illegal thereby obliterating any 4th Amendment protections
you might have had.

I've been meaning to get this done for some time, but my work on
another novel prevented it until now. My big 2000 novel Forge of the
Elders is out in paperback from Baen Books, and I thought you might
appreciate knowing about it.

Rather than blowing my own horn, allow me to present three reviews
Forge of the Elders received when it appeared in hardcover, two by
T.L. Knapp when it won the Freedom Book of the Month Award for May,
2000 (excellent birthday present, Tom!) and the Freedom Book of the
Year Award for the same year. I'm also including William E. Howell's
generous review for Prometheus, recently reprinted when Forge of
the Elders became a finalist for the Prometheus Award.

We'll find out more about that in September.

* * *

T.L. KNAPP FOR FREE-MARKET.NET

Capitalist monsters from outer space!

Well ... not exactly. Turns out they're not monsters, but sapient
individualists. And they come from all of the various alternate
universes where evolution took a different fork in the road and the
crustaceans or the dinosaurs ended up as the dominant and intelligent
species.

L. Neil Smith is known for his brand of no-holds-barred space
opera centered around a libertarian theme. Forge of the Elders
"seriously discusses life-and-death ethics, epistemology, metaphysics
(the Aristotelian kind), physics, evolution, the authoritarian
personality, and politics of unanimous consent," the author said in a
recent letter. "In many ways, it's my most ambitious literary
undertaking so far."

I think it may be his downright best in terms of grabbing a reader
and yanking him down into the suspension of disbelief that fiction
requires, too.

Smith predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, but in this saga,
communism made a big worldwide comeback. The protagonists are the
captain and crew of three mothballed space shuttles approaching an
asteroid dubbed 5023 Eris on a mission of exploration and
exploitation on behalf of the United World Soviet. But someone has
beat them to it ... a culture composed of sapient nautiloids,
obsequious reptiles, and inscrutable arachnids -- and rescued humans
from a civilization predating our known history.

They're individualists, they're capitalists, and they're already
there; what's more, their technology is of such superiority that it
wouldn't be difficult for them to wipe out three space shuttles,
their misfit crews, and perhaps the home planet before lunch.
Naturally, the Soviet apparatchiki aren't hearing it though, which
leaves Captain Guttierez, Major Reille y Sanchez, and company in a
delicate situation. Hilarity and philosophy ensue. Only L. Neil Smith
would have the temerity to have a character ask, with a straight
face, "Who is John Galt?" And he has the talent to carry it off.

The characters -- from Mister Thoggosh (nautiloid "Proprietor" of
5023 Eris) to Rosalind Nguyen, chief medic of the lamented expedition
-- face a series of murders, delicate diplomatic situations, and the
ultimate mystery: the origin and fate of "the Eldest," a sapient race
that came and went before all others. They may be Smith's most
well-rounded cast.

Don't let the good humor, the tension of mystery and the empathy
Smith generates for his characters obscure the depth of Smith's
exposition of ideas.

This book is a winner from every angle.

* * *

BILL HOWELL, IN PROMETHEUS

One is tempted just to say, "L. Neil Smith wrote it", and let it go
as that. After all, that pretty much guarantees it will be a
rollicking good adventure, openly espousing liberty and damning all
the "usual suspects" who work against our freedoms. In this case, the
novel is particularly satisfying, as it is the unified completion of
a trilogy L. Neil began years ago, which was unceremoniously
cancelled by its publisher after the second book, for being "too
extreme".

Forge of the Elders tells the tale of a mid-21st century shoestring
expedition from an impoverished and socialism-dominated Earth to a
strange asteroid. Upon arrival, they discover that it is inhabited by
numerous intelligent species from alternate historical realities on
Earth, all of whom are devout anarcho-capitalists. Smith gives free
rein to his imaginative faculties in dreaming up what sentient beings
would look and act like, had they emerged via evolutionary branches
as different as birds, mollusks, trilobites, sea scorpions, and more.

The immense (534 pages) tale progresses through a multiple murder
mystery and the solving of several fascinating scientific enigmas to
the expected happy ending. Oh yeah, there's a space battle in this
book, too! There's even a tie-in to the North American Confederacy
storyline. Many unique characters are presented, especially Eichra
Oren, the p'Nan moral debt assessor, and his talking dog, Sam. Eichra
Oren experiences love and tragic loss, not to mention the conflict
between his personal desire and his moral responsibility. I don't
want to go into anymore plot details, lest I spoil some of the
wonderful surprises in this book.

All in all, Forge of the Elders is fine, fun story, chock full of
good philosophical points and interesting characters. If you like any
of L. Neil Smith's previous novels, you will love this one,
particularly as it packs even more of a personal and philosophical
wallop than usual.

Enjoy!

* * *

T.L. KNAPP FOR FREE-MARKET.NET

Choosing a Freedom Book of the Year has been difficult for me. In
2000, I've been privileged to review twelve volumes that all stand
head and shoulders above the norm. I've seen astounding first novels
(David Calderwood's Revolutionary Language), moving histories (Jim
Powell's Triumph of Liberty"), groundbreaking theoretical works
(J.C. Lester's Escape from Leviathan), and more. What the decision
finally came down to, for me, was a simple question: Which of these
twelve books will stick with me? Which one of them would I think
about on a desert island, even if I couldn't take it with me?

And thus I bring you, as Freedom Book of the Year, L. Neil Smith's
Forge of the Elders.

I confess to a certain amount of prejudice in the matter. I grew up,
after all, as a science fiction fan, and not just any kind of science
fiction fan. I thrilled to Robert Heinlein's juveniles, and later to
the grandiose space opera of E.E. "Doc" Smith. To this day, while I
can read and enjoy the cold, matte-black maunderings of cyberpunk or
of science fiction novels so "hard" that you need a physics degree to
really understand them, what I really like is a larger-than-life hero
or heroine, villains so irredeemably evil that their presence on the
page chills one's blood, and lots of action.

And spaceships. We mustn't forget: lots of spaceships.

Forge of the Elders is all this and more: the tale of the asteroid
5023 Eris and those who love -- or at least want to control -- her.
Smith starts off with three (three!) spaceships, or space shuttles at
any rate, and it only gets better from there. More spaceships, more
captains (one whose personality and elan in combat with ethical
dilemmas makes James Tiberius Kirk look like the tight-ass, tin-horn
authoritarian he is, another who happens to be a mollusk the size of
a Volkswagen), more conundrums and more good humor than you can shake
a tightly collimated ionizing laser beam at.

Smith writes space opera like ... well, analogies fail me here. Like
a rodeo cowboy rides bulls, strapping himself to the story and
letting it go hell for leather, only the trip is longer than eight
seconds and you actually get somewhere useful. Or maybe like the
astronauts of the old Apollo program, who sat atop a pile of
explosive fuel big enough to blow a city-size crater in the earth,
and managed, despite the bureaucratic meddling and red tape, to make
it take them into space -- to the moon, even -- instead.

Wrapped inside the big ball of fascinating yarn that Smith calls
Forge of the Elders is a philosophical knitting needle, an
audacious reclamation of a philosophy that brings sneers to the lips
of academicians and demagogues even today: Social Darwinism. That
anyone, in this day and age, would attempt to redeem the philosophy
made famous in the 19th century by Herbert Spencer and William Graham
Sumner is remarkable in itself. That Smith succeeds not only in
redeeming it, but in extending it and making it relevant, is key to
my selection of Forge of the Elders as Freedom Book of the Year.

Smith has spoken to these issues in the past, most notably in his
speech, "A New Approach to Social Darwinism." In Forge of the
Elders he fleshes out his notion of the twin roles of adversity and
diversity in the survival and improvement of species, and links these
factors with both the emergence of sapience and the desirability of
human liberty.

My bookshelves are full of well-plotted, entertaining novels, and
they overflow with well-argued, logical treatises on economics,
philosophy and politics. Only a very few books, by a select few
authors, manage to be both successfully. A number of those books are
by Smith, and Forge of the Elders holds pride of place among them.
This trilogy -- in one omnibus volume -- is a must for anyone who
cherishes both a great story and an intellectual challenge.

* * *

If I were to add one thing, it's that, whatever else Forge of the
Elders may be, it can serve as the same sort of introduction to a
philosophy of individual liberty as my earlier books, The
Probability Broach and Pallas. The difference is that Forge of
the Elders addresses more deeply fundamental moral issues.

Forge of the Elders is available right now in bookstores, grocery
stores, and drugstores everywhere. If your local emporium doesn't
have it, ask them to order it. Tell them the bizarre and wonderful
cover by Bob Eggleton -- featuring a longhaired, bearded astronaut
drinking a beer with a giant squid -- should sell the book all by
itself. It's also available at Amazon.com
[hardback
or paperback]
and, most happily, at http://www.LaissezFaireBooks.com.
If you like it, you might drop my publisher a note at jim_baen@baen.com
and tell him you want to see more books by yours truly.